Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton highlights KU museum event

Also on display are pre-Columbian artifacts, mammal skulls

New exhibits featuring artifacts of pre-Columbian archaeology, expressions of the color red in nature and the real bones of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton will be highlighted during an event Saturday, Aug. 16 at The University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum in Lawrence.

Although the event celebrates museum members, those who are not members yet or are curious about the museum’s membership program are welcome to attend.

The free event begins with an open house and hands-on family activities at 7 p.m. Visitors are encouraged to bring picnic blankets and stay for ice cream and an outdoor showing of “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” on an inflatable screen at 8:30 p.m.

Exhibits on the sixth-floor wing of the museum use art and science to display the beauty, diversity and functional form of mammal skulls, from bats to elephants. The displays include otherworldly “faces” of parasites of sharks and rays and the delicate, luminescent skeletons of fishes and frogs.